Bill Nye, ‘The Debate Guy,’ evokes evolution and faith

Bill Nye entered a creationists’ den in Kentucky on Tuesday night, addressing the question “How did we get here?” in a debate with creationist Ken Ham, who believes the world is 6,000 years old and defends the book of Genesis.

The TV host who explains science to young people deployed wit, evidence of carbon dating, appeals to broad-minded Christians and even America’s economic health to a specific end: “We have to keep science education as science.”

The Australian-born Ham charged that believers in the theory of evolution have themselves created an “anti-God revolution,” proselytizing through “indoctrination” in schools with the aim of a “religious fertilization” in secularism.

Creation Museum head Ken Ham, right, speaks during a debate on evolution with TV’s “Science Guy” Bill Nye, at the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Ky., Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2014. Ham believes the Earth was created 6,000 years ago by God and is told strictly through the Bible. Nye says he is worried the U.S. will not move forward if creationism is taught to children. (AP Photo/The Courier-Journal, Matt Stone)

“I believe the word ‘science’ has been hijacked by secularists,” Ham charged.

While fudging on whether he believes everything in the Bible is literally true, Ham argued: “Creation is the only viable model of historical science.” Later, Ham doubled down to say: “Any scientist out there in any endeavor is using creation.”

“The first sentence of Genesis says, God created the heavens and the earth. That is the only thing that makes sense,” said Ham, who hosted the debate with Nye at his Creation Museum in northern Kentucky.

Criticized for accepting Ham’s invite to debate, Nye showed the skill and charm that made his program “Bill Nye, The Science Guy” a hit.

“Right now, I see no incompatibility between religion and science,” he argued.

In head-on-head debate with Ham — this was no dulled-down presidential debate — Nye challenged his creationist opponent.

“There are Christians who don’t accept that Earth is of an extraordinarily young age,” he said. “What is to become of them? . . . What is to become of all the people who don’t see things your way?”

Nye deployed illustrations to refute, without mocking, the biblical story of Noah’s ark. He pointed to as many as 680,000 layers in the world’s ice sheets and asked, “How could, 4,000 years ago, all of these layers (have) formed?”

He showed pictures of trees whose age has been carbon dated to 6,800 years, and even “Old Tjikko” , a 9,550-year-old Norway spruce located in Sweden, and asked: “How could these trees be there if there was an enormous flood 4,000 years ago?”

Ham has argued that 7,000 pairs of species found their way onto Noah’s ark. There are approximately 16 million species in the world today. How, asked Nye, could hundreds of new species come into being daily to make up today’s total?

Nye wondered what kind of shipwrights could have created an ark big enough to hold 7,000 species. The National Zoo in Washington, D.C., accommodates 400 species over 163 acres. Were all animals on Noah’s ark vegetarians? And, questioning how they floated long enough to endure a great flood, “Forget the lions and tigers: Your enemies are germs.”

Nye was clearly a slam-dunk winner.

“It’s God’s revelation to man,” Ham said of the Bible, but was unable to explain or logically defend what he believes literally to be true.

Ham tried to mount a defense based on values, arguing that the “secular hijackers” espouse abortion, euthanasia and moral relativism, while creationists believe in more traditional doctrines, such as life beginning at fertilization.

So thoroughly was he out-debated that it was difficult to see what value Ham gained from sharing the stage with Nye for two hours.

As for Nye, he has become an eloquent spokesman against those who want to require that public schools teach a sectarian, religious interpretation of the origin of life side-by-side with with scientific evidence.

Ham charged that secularists are “barring the Christian world” from the teaching of how humankind evolved.

If Ham’s view gains traction, however, Nye argued that the United States will face a myriad of dangers — far beyond the rancor over what should be in Texas schoolbooks.

“If we continue to eschew science . . . we are not going to move forward,” Nye argued. “we will not embrace natural laws. We will not make discoveries. We will not invent and innovate and move ahead.”